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WOEKS BY THE SAME AUTHOE. 



A WAiiK IN HELL.AS. A record of a journey on 
foot in rural Greece. Price, $2.50. 



Agamemnon's Daughter. 
Poem. Price, $1.50. 



A Classic-Romantic 



Delphic Days. An idyl in ancient elegiac stanza 
giving the modern Greek life in Delphic scenery. 
Price, $1.00. 



SOON TO BE PUBLISHED: 
Goethe's Faust. A commentary on the literary 
Bibles. 



AN 



Epigrammatic Voyage, 



BY 



DENTON J. SNIDER. 



y 



V OF CO 



\»'qO , :-..^-.^;^'-uj 



:AYll ■.886^V 



WASHm'^ 



Boston: 
TICKNOR & CO, 

1886. 



o 



ft) 2,«82. 



Copyright Secured 1886, 



BY 



DENTON J. SNIDER, 



o 






INSCRIPTION 



Could I but give to thee half the delight in reading these verses 
That I feel as I make all of them leap to my beat, 

Surely our friendship would be in this book forever recorded: 
Vain is the hope, thou hast too many other good books. 

Still I shall write it, doing my best to win tw^o persons, 
Namely, myself and the God; hardly the third I expect. 



BOOK FIRST. 



5- 



All the sea was a smile and a twinkle was every wavelet, 

Cheerily flew the white sails big with the favoring breeze, 

And the ship — the new ship — bore away to the goal of her 

[voyage, 

While the steersman in sport dallied with water and wind. 

Merrily under the touch of the rudder is rocking the vessel. 

Rising a little above, falling a little below, 

Eager to dance on the sea with the billow and romp with the 

[sunbeam, 

While the wares in the hold safely to haven it brings. 
Epigrams, rise! your voyage begins, now rock with the vessel^ 

One with the sway of the ship, one with the storm and the calm. 
Be ye the soul at the helm, and be } e the voice of the helmsman, 

Be ye the sea and the land, be ye the present and past. 



—6 



P^stive processions of Nereids drawn by silver-reined dolphins 

Wind in the curls of the sea, curled by soft Zephyrus' hand; 

Shell-blowing Tritons rise up and announce the approach of 

[Poseidon, 

Then sink under the tide to the hoarse note of their shells. 

Look o'er waves to the line of yon blue, 'tis a festival splendid, 

Thousands of deities hoar float round Poseidon's moist car. 



Royal Poseidon has harnessed his horses to his blue chariot, 
White flow their manes in the w^ind as they are racing to shore; 

On the surface they play with the infinite movement of water. 

Dancing the dance of the sea over the caroling waves; 

But as soon as they brush underneath on the strand's pebbly 

[bottom, 

Broken and foaming they fall headlong against the hard beach. 

Noble thy steeds, O Poseidon, and ever the more to be valued, 

That no feet they possess which can step out of the sea. 



—7- 



Roguish, light-winged epigram, boldest rover of Hclla,:, 
Robber too of her sweets, lurking on all of her ways, 
Little pirate on poesy's ocean, now I have caught thee; 
. Give me some of thy spoils, else I shall crush thee to prose. 



Wavelet, why dost thou seek to walk out of thy kingdom of 

[waters. 

Where is woven thv robe out of the blue of the skies? — 

Nereid, why art thou trying to leave the gay train of Poseidon, 

Losing thy beautiful form at the first touch of the land? 

Thou wilt but flounder a moment among the rough stones of 

[the shallows, 

Watery film are thy hands — they cannot cling to the earth. 



—8 



The God's trident hath not the sole power to rule on the Ocean, 
A fair girdle I saw fondled and kissed by the waves; 

Each of them sought it, lovingly pressed it a moment, then lost it; 
Oh the great hand of the sea, how it would clutch for the prize, 

Trying to hold in its watery grasp that girdle inconstant, 

Which through its fingers would slip — vain w^as the task of 

[a God. 

Laughing it swayed to the rise and the fall of the refluent bosom 

Sprung of the billowy spume; here Aphrodite once rose. 

Here now she rises again from the w^ave and is free of her sea- 

[robe, 

Stands at the helm of the ship, changes its course to her spell, . 

Hanging her zone on the rudder; I knew it as soon as I saw it ! 

Oft have I seen it on land, plaything of Eros her boy. 



-9 



Eros, I warn thee, in this e^Digrammatical voyage 

I shall not take thee along, put up thy arrow and bow, 

Breathe not thy flattering breath on my words, stop caressing 

[my fancies. 

Thou art too much of a boy, I am too much of a man. — 

But the sly rogue laughs hundreds of sweet little epigrams at me, 

• Hundreds and hundreds they fly, filling these classical skies. 

He hath stolen my weapon poetic and turned it against me, 

As from the War- God he stole buckler and spear and the 

[sword. 



Epigram, tell me, gay charmer, the source of thy w^onderful 

[genius; 

Turn now thy verse on thyself, thee by thy light let me see, 

And in a distich behold thy true face by double reflection; 

Rise, Hexameter, there; follow. Pentameter, too. — 

Curious voyager, why break open my virginal treasure ? 

Touch but my two little lips making a mouth for thy kiss." 



4( 



10 



9 

Thou must behold in the sea not merely the sea but the image 
Mirrored down in the deep, changing to forms of the Gods; 

Water, as water, can be but insipid, without its reflection — 
The fair Nymph in the brook, Nereid under the sea. 

But if no Deity thou canst behold in the rill or the ocean, 
Peer once more in its glass, there tliou beholdest thy face. 

lO 

Epigrams scatter I over my page like the shells of the mussel 
Which on the bottom lie strown under the rollicking waves; 

Reader, be thou my pearl diver, valiantly plunge in the waters, 
Say thy prayers first, ere thou sink down to the depths; 

Then will a beautiful Nereid lay on thy finger a mussel ; 
Raise it and crack It; perchance hid in the shell is a pearl. 

II 

Water I saw once thrown on the sunshine in order to quench it; 
All of the water was spilled, but the bright sunshine remained. 



-11- 



12 



At a bright coal of fire a wasp grew angry — he stung it; 
His fine stinger was ch'pped, but the coal glowed as before. 



^3 

Whither, O whither, my frolicsome boat, is the flight of thy 

[swan-wings? 

Enter this yellowish stream pouring down into the sea. 

Pouring down into the world through the gate of the past to 

[the future; 

Narrow thy course to its banks, wind with its turns through 

[the plain, 

Till we reach in our voyage the highest Olympian sources^ 

Sailing on sea and on land, sailing up mountain and sky. 



—12 



H 



Swollen and angry seems always the brow of the God of the 

[Tiber; 

He has a right to his wrath if we but think of his lot; 
All the drains of the earth and streams that wash alien countries 

Have been gathered by time into the torrent of Rome, 

To be sent down her channel afar to the limitless ocean, 

Which doth lave every land round the new shores of the 

[world. 

Where the Greek rivulet pours its transparency into the River, 
The stern frown of the God drops into dimples of joy ; 

Thither I love to saunter at random along the bright border. 
Till the clear waters be lost, lost in the turbulent wave. 



15 

Two fair daughters were born to the ages, Camena and Musa; 

Giantess grew up the one, swaying all men to her will, 

While the sweet sister has always remained a blooming young 

[maiden, 

Sixteen summers she has; 'tis the old story of love. 



Ui- 



i6 



Clear are thy fountains, O Hellas, as out of the hillsides they 

[gurgle, 

And in a crystalline stream flow through the valley and mead ; 
Small are thy rills, oft leaping along in channels of marble. 

Often reposing in grots under cool arches o'ermossed. 

Larger than they, but turbid, is ever the rush of the Tiber; 

Give me to drink of thy brook, small, but transparent and 

[glad. 



17 



Where do these temples look with their faces of pillars and friezes ? 

Where do these monuments point, with a set finger of stone? 

Where do these statues that fill with their forms vast halls and 

[museums 

Turn when they whisper of home, hinting of destiny rude? 

Where but to Hellas, the happy abode of their freedom, 

Ere the Roman had come, thralling their beauty to use. 



-14 



i8 



Rome, I have fed with peaceful delight on thy honey delicious, 

Daily I open new hives built in the ages of yore. 

Dead long ago are the bees that gathered these stores of enjoy- 

[ment, 

Heliconian swarm, reared on the flowers of Greece. 

Still the sweet structure of cunning instinctive is not as they 

[left it, 

Broken and scattered and stained are all the fragments so fair. 
Yet each fragment distils a clear liquid infused with the nectar 

That long since down to earth fell from the tables of Gods. 

Roaming amid ancient forests of pillars, now fallen and broken. 

E'en from the fissures and breaks I have been catching the 

[drops. 

What delight at the draught went throbbing in waves through 

[the body? 

Was it the mildness of art, or the mad wildness of wine ? 



15 



Ah! this moment there follows the surfeit of gratification, 

Ruddy enjoyment now palls, Rome can no longer delight. 

List! there is aught in these marbles that hints of an ancient 

[estrangement, 

A low^ sigh may be heard out of the heart of the stones: 
We are but captives taken to grace a conqueror's triumph, 

Out of a beautiful world which we had made for ourselves; 
Here our lot is to seem and to serve in the house of a master, 

O for our Hellas once more; O for our freedom and home. 



19 



Art must be a true worship of Gods, not merely enjoyment, 

Goddess is the high Muse, scorns to be used for desire; 

Dizened with jewels of strangers, her honor at once is suspected. 

Clothed she must be in the robe which she, a Goddess, hath 

[w^ove. 



16 



20 



Speak, O Quirites, and tell me, ye Cassars, your fall, your great 

[downfall, 

When into ruin the world sank with the Gods in the crash; 

Read me your doom, ye Senators, Censors and great Imperators, 

Kings in your palaces once, some of you Gods in your fanes; 

What did ye do, maimed rows of sad marble, to call up this 

[judgment? 

Misery broods in your pomp, beggary breeds in your homes. 
But what saddens me more than all the long pang of your city, 

Hellas, the fair, I behold lying in rags on the street; 
Her I now see as the beautiful slave that served in the temple 

Built by the conqueror Rome, with all the peoples of earth; 

Free no longer and pure, she lost her heavenly figure, 

Though- she was decked with the wealth ta'en from the spoils 

[of a world. 

Forms and abodes of the Gods, she, a slave, no longer created, 

Once a Goddess herself, sprung of Olympian seed. 



17— 



21 



I am everything ancient and modern at Rome, the eternal! 

Here on this spot where is all, how can I help being all — 
Past and future, the high and the low, the good and the bad, too? 

Lawgiver Roman I come weighing the law of the world; 
Conqueror lordly of Britain and Gaul, I triumph in wine-shops; 

Orator ancient at times, thunder I Cicero's phrase. 
But I am now the new schoolmaster, old Latin poets construing 

Once again in my school ; ye are my schoolboys, O friends. 
Come, gay Horace with amorous Ovid, Catullus, Propertius, 

All of your verse I shall turn into plain English at once; 
"Captive Greece was the beautiful mistress kept by Quirinus, 

Throned she lay in his heart, spurned from his morals and law; 

Thou wilt know the result — she debauched both his heart and 

[his morals. 

While with her honor's loss, lost was her beauty divine." 



-la- 



23 



Conscript Fathers of Rome and of Time, a speech in your Senate, 
One short speech — that is all — now I am ready to make — 

Not the plentiful silvery stream of the Orator Roman, 

But brief barbarous words shouting the cry of these stones: 

Not enough, O Rome, to enslave the whole world to thy surfeit — 
Thou hast enslaved the Gods, slave thou art now to thyself. 



23 

Now I must leave thee, O Rome; there is a loud clock in the city. 
Tolling the limit of time when the sad guest must depart; 

Louder still I can hear the stroke of the clock in my bosom. 
Smiting with hammer of steel : now I must leave thee, O Rome. 



—19 



. 24 

As thy virtue, O Latium, is mad, so thy pleasure is beastly; 

Hellas enjoys and refrains sweetly together in one. 
Thou art, O Roman^ either too good or too bad for my journey; 

Thou, O Greek art a man, come, let me take thee along. 



25 

Looking before me I see happy banks in the skies built of 

[sunshine, 

Looking behind me I feel clouds in mine eyes full of rain; 

Why are the heavens there full of joy, and here full of sorrow? 

Rome I am leaving behind, Athens is lying before. 



20 



26 



Now, O Rome, is my path where point thy fingers of marble, 

Where thy speaking stones say is the land of their birth; 

Where is the home of the forms that uphold thy arches triumphal, 

Home of the urns of thv dead, wreathed with fresh flowers 

[of life. 

'Tis the secret command of thy heart, O city imperial, 

Now the fountain to find whence is derived the stream. 



27 



Swinging on high between two visions seemeth my journey, 

As the pendulum swings back from a tick to a tick; 

And on the clock of the world I am marking the weigHtiest 

[moments, 

As I sweep to and fro through the dead ages embalmed. 

Substance fades to a dream, but the dream soon hardens to 

[substance, 

Huge Coliseum recedes, Parthenon rises to view. 



-21 



28 



Epigram, speed thee, be a little more epigrammatic, 
In but a distich's sweet kiss press me thy two tiny lips. 



29 



Modesty, sweetest of maidens, is not aware she is modest; 
When she knoweth herself, then she is never herself. 



30 



Modesty's speech is always a silence that tells she is modest; 
Never declaring her own, hath she the sv^reetest of praise. 



31 



Never can Modesty, e'en in a dream, proclaim her own nature; 
With but the word she is lost, fled at the sound of her voice. 



—22- 



32 



As I passed underneath, there fell the gray leaf of the OHve, 
Pricked with a needle of frost, 'twas the first leaf of the fall; 

Gently it lodged in my hair, and found too a frosted companion, 

Which had there stealthily crept, stealing along with the years. 

There lay the leaf, and it stroked me as if the soft hand of 

[Minerva, 

Her sweet benison gave out of her favorite tree. 



33 

Why has the frolicsome Olive been called the tree of sage Pallas? 

See the green branches of youth gleam with the silver of age, 
Poesy's juvenile buoyancy blent with grave wisdom's reflection: 

On each leaflet behold choruses danced to the sun. 
Then look up at the fruit on the twigs suspended by handfuls, 

wSuch was the Goddess' gift; take it, 'tis thine, if thou canst. 



28 



34 

Under tlie Olives I wander, silvery green is the sparkle, 

Dancing about on the leaves with the new rays of the sun; 
P'ruit is just turning dark to mature along v/ith the season, 

While the skipping gay hours diadems weave on the hills. 
Crude and green on the branches is hanging still many a berry 

But this sun in the south quickly will ripen them all. 
Long I loiter delighted, though always I sigh for the harvest. 

As I look up at the limbs laden with layers of fruit. 

Tarry until the green leaf of the tree-top is struck by the hoar- 

[ frost, 

Not an olive matures till it be smitten by fate. 



35 

A slight frost often touches before the harvest will ripen. 

The crude growth of the tree, softens to mildness and strength 

From the foliage words of the Goddess are silently dropping, 
''Gather the fruit, O man; hasten, thy harvest has come." 



—24 



36 



I can tell you a secret about the ascent of this mountain ; 

If from below you look up, \¥hy, it appears but one top 
Which you can easily reach, but it is a long series of summits, 

Each one struggling above with pleasant valleys between. 

When you have reached one summit there breaks overhead yet 

[another; 

Thus you laboriously climb, viewing a height ever new. 

Loiter, I pray, at times in the vales, in the folds of the mountain, 

There the flowers w^ll bloom, there too the shepherd will pipe. 



-25 



37 



Crystalline folds, as they lie on the form of the Goddess, thou 

[knowest, 

They can be seen on this mount resting serene in the sun; 

What are the dingles and dells that roll in millions of wavelets 

Down the sides of the slope, but the mild flow of the folds? 



38 

What a wild symphony heard I to-day on the top of the mountain ! 

Foremost came the small bee piping soprano above. 

Then the big bumble bee slowly was droning his note, the deep 

[basso, 

While the fly on his flute played a soft alto between. 

Thousands of fiddlers were daintily touching the strings of their 

[fiddles, 

Large and little were there, tuned to the keynote of clime. 

All were at work on the flowers, not thinkino^ thev made anv 

[music. 

Still their work ever moved to the sweet music they made. 



26- 



39 

Stop and listen! here is the mead and there is the mountain; 

Soft tones echo from both if thou wilt hear them alone; 

Give up thy breath for a moment! catch the new voice of all 

[nature! 

Thou must not think of thyself, if thou wilt hear what it says. 

One deep note it becomes now, swelling above the whole land- 

[scape, 

But thou wilt lose it at once, if to repeat it thou seek. 



40 

Loftily over the brow of the mountain is hanging a ruin. 
Ready to tumble beneath, seeming to sink in itself; 

Once it was peopled with monks, but now it is held by the Dryads, 
Who have re-taken their home, whence they were driven of old. 

Now I can enter the cloister, a member become of their order; 

Bring me a hair skin of moss, wreathe me a cowl of green 

[leaves, 

Clothe me, O Nymphs, in embraces, hang on my lips your 

[caresses, 



27— 



That by your rites I become here in my cell a i^ood monk. 

How I can sing m these ruins — let them fall inside and outside; 

On this fresh cloistered moss how I can sleep — let it grow. 



41 



A dark crhost was flittinsf alone throu^fh the w^alls of the cloister. 

Mid the ruins it sped, vanishing soon into mist; 

What could it be? The last monk. The fountain there laughed 

[more clearly 

As the Nymphs of the stream saw the lone specter depart. 

42 

Here I rest in the far-glancing, sun-roofed temple of Phoebus, 
Spreading over my head through to the ends of the world; 

Far below in the vale is the olive-green floor of the tree-tops. 
Pillars are mountains of stone holding the golden round roof, 

Such is my Pantheon now, where all of the Gods are assembled. 
Holding a festival free, in an Hellenic high strain. 



28 



43 



With his fingers of gold now softly Apollo Is feeling 

Over the breasts of the hills, drowsy as yet in the dawn; 

Like a fond waking husband he turns with a face full of splendor, 
To his sweet spouse, the earth, golden caresses to reach. 



There she is lying with bosom burst out in the glow of his 

glances, 

She with a smile half asleep, gives the response to his touch. 



44 



Finest droplet of sweetness is sipped from the earth by the 

[flower, 

On the flower alights, sipping its treasure, the bee; 
From the stores of the bee sips man, of sippers the highest. 

All the sweetness of earth he must distil into life. 
Soil and flower and bee are a channel for fountains of nectar 

Ready to gush in thy mouth; touch now thy lips to the stream. 



>29 



45 

Here is the flower, the holder of honey, transmute It to verses; 

Six white leaves form a star, looking above at the stars, 
Often diverse is the size, and varied is often the color. 

Purple at times it becomes, vanishing faintly to blue. 
Inside golden it is, where shines too the bees' sweet treasure; 

Pluck it up from the ground, plant it anew in thy soil. 



46 



Small is the mountain, but of Its sweets thou canst gather a 

[mouthful, 

Or a hivef ul perchance, If thou art truly a bee. 



47 



A stray bird came to Delphi and pecked at the grapes of the 

[vineyard. 

Drunken with juice he began strangely to sing a new song. 



30- 



48 

Epigrams always are hanging over my walks in long clusters, 
Attic grapes they are, full of the juice of the clime; 

On the path of my journey I roam through antique vine-yards. 

Many a bunch 1 receive plucked by the grower's own hand. 

All are not equally good in the bunch, some are small, some are 

[green still, 

Pick them off one by one noting their various worth. 

Every grape must be crushed with a thought, not stupidly 

[swallowed. 

If thou wilt feel the light glow lit in the grape by the God. 

49 

Drops that were craftily hid in the clusters now gather in gushes, 

Break from within the soft pulp out of the heart of the grape; 

Long has the droplet been ripening there in the joy of the sun- 

[shine, 

Earth, air, lieaven above, all have given their aid; 

And the old vine-dresser many a year has been training the 

[branches. 

Just for thy rapture to-day ; here thou hast all of their gifts. 



-31 



5° 

Wouldst thou know the sweetest, siibHmest lesson of Nature, 

What the Poet repeats in the keen iiash of his words, 
What divhilty utters ghding a-down froni Olympus, 

What, too, philosophy says in the deep cast of her brow? 
This it is: from the soil sips each little mouth of the rootlet, 

From the rootlet sips uninterrupted the grape, 
And from the grape sips man the immortal, the top of creation. 

Dowered with reason divine, like in his form to a God. 
Rootlets are tipplers, intoxicated are all of the clusters. 

Bacchanals too are the vines, crooked and reeling around. 
See them rise from the earth to a deitv, wreathinof his body, 

Gently diffusing their juice; note thy example, O man. 

51 

The coy blink of this virsfinal wine is my treasure fore\'er, 
Maiden sincere as the word which she inspireth in hearts; 

Let me now touch, ere Time slip away, my lips to the virgin. 
Who doth smiie in the orlass brimmino; immaculate love. 



32 



52 

Mortal the eye is and so must remain, still it sees things immortal; 

High Bacchic pomp it beholds in but a cup of the wine; 
And in each drop uplifted to lips from the fount of Castalia, 

Bathers divine it can see sporting white limbs in a stream. 

53 

One, O Greek, was thine eye and thy soul, in a harmony splendid 
Both together were blent that they no parting allowed; 

Sight was insight to thee, and thought a transpicuous image, 
Thou didst see with tl:y soul, soul too beheld with thy glance; 

In thine eye as a mirror were seen all the colors of nature, 
Calmly reflecting therein depths that belong to the soul. 

54 

Poesy cannot behold her own flight to poetical regions. 

When she looks back at her wings, then is she fallen to earth; 

She nmstsoar to the goal in her rapture, not think she is soaring, 
Fair she also must be, O let her not think she is fair. 



33 



55 



Why so modest, my dear little epigram, poesy's sweet-heart? 

I would thy lover be now, lisp me thy tenderest w ord. — 
Voyager, I cannot say I am modest, because I am modest. 

If I could tell what I am, then thou w^ouldst love me no more. 



56 

Fond epigrammatist, thou art my lover, be not my betrayer; 

Leave me my virginal lure, else thou wilt spurn me thyself, 
Seek not my maidenly mystery wooing the charm of thy verses. 

Else not a line, not a word can I impress on thy lips. 



57 

Placid th}^ speech, O Homer, transparent it runs like the brooklet. 
Under the surface we see Nymphs in the fount of thy words, 

Freely disporting their forms, and revealing divinest perfections; 
??ow with the brooklet behold always the Nymph underneath. 



84 



58 

To a nest of bowls I am fain to liken these poems, 

Outside and inside are bowls, each can be seen in the one; 

And yet each is itself altogether, cannot be another, 

Thou must the inside discern, if thou the outside wilt know. 

59 

Hercules had two fathers, a mortal and an immortal. 
So had Theseus bold, Attica's pride and defense; 

So has every Hero filled with mighty endeavor. 

He is the child of some God stealthily gliding to earth. 

6o 

Why is the father of Heroes often the weakest of mortals? 

Why so seldom the sons have the endowment divine? 
Some invisible strand winds through our domestic relation, 

Which reaching up to the Gods, draws a Promethean spark. 
Two are the households of man and his kindship ever is double, 

To an Olympian hearth, though here below, he belongs. 



35— 



6i 



Shepherdess, hear me, now is the spring and thou art the flower, 
Hoary old Time with his scythe tarries to look at thy hloom ; 

I can see him standing at rest before the young harvest, 

What a glow in his face! ardor is burning his veins. 

Blame him not, he grows young in thy youth, turns red in thy 

[rose-bud; 

Not a word thou hast said, still thy sweet whisper is heard. 

Now I too have to yield, and answer thy bloom with my 

[blossom. 

Come, the whole world is a fiower which we are plucking 

[just now. 



M 



62 

Wake not love in these epigrams, be a little more careful, 

Leave thy caresses, O Muse, which thou dost drop in my lines, 

Well thou knowest my weakness, and laughest a verse at my 

[purpose; 

A suspicion I have that thou wnlt waylay my words. 

Catching them up from my lips before I can train them to duty; 

In these epigrams. Muse, wake not my love with thy kiss. 

Art thou sick? Then go out and list to the little musicians. 
That by the hundreds now pi^^e under the half-bursted buds; 

Hark to the strain! they turn each tree-top into a fountain 

Welling melodious jets high in the air overhead. 

Find out what they are singing as they now greet the new 

[spring-time. 

That will heal thee, mv friend; it is great Nature's first balm. 



-37 



64 



This sweet love, is the fairest moment of spring, this moment; 

Soon it will pass on its way; quick, let us go to the iields, 

Where it will tarry the longest around the new tops of the 

[woodland, 

Over the roll of the hills vanishing in.to the haze. 
All the year has suddenly bloomed in this day, in tliis minute, 

The whole world is a flower, fragrantly blowing just now. 
Every rise of the sun hath seemed in some Joy to look foi'ward, 

This is the moment it saw far in tlie glow of its eye. 
All the days of the year have i^een climbing above to this simimit, 

Novv' each tick of the clock sadly must knell tbeb; decline. 

But thy journey of life has now touched its most beautiful 

[I'jioment, 

Hold it fast in tljy heart — that is thy conquest of Tin>e. 



BOOK SECOND 



:i9 



Voyage you call it: But tell me where are the sea and the vessel? 

Under my feet is no plank, points of the compass are lost. 

Epigrams, friend, are the whole of my craft, now a ship, now 

["a shallop, 

Thoughts are the timbers inlaid, fancies the fluttering sails, 

And I float my epigrammatical fleet on an ocean. 

Laughingly yielding its wave to the soft breath of the Gods. 



40 



Reader, I deem thou hast quit me thy voyager epigrammatic, 
Fallen perchance by the way, quite overcome by fatigue; 

Still I often shall hopefully call thee as if thou vvert present, 
With me a friend I must think, though there be really none. 



On the strand overborne by the frown of high Posilupo, 

Stood I and looked to the sea praying Poseidon to rise; 

Soon came the God at my call in his chariot over the surface. 

Through the bright waves of the sea cutting a track of quick 

[Hght. 

But as he neared the low shore and touched the firm sand of the 

[shallows, 

Horses and chariot and God broke into foam at my feet. 



— il 



In the soft arms of Poseidon is the dear home of the sea-nymphs; 

Do not deco\ them away from their abode to the hmd ; 

Dost thou not see that no feet they possess to rise up from the 

[waters? 

Watch them far out in the main, sporting bright shapes in the 

[sun. 



Naples, true is thv title to-day, thou art still the new city. 

Old thou never hast grown, though on thy head lie the years 

By the thousand. Neapolis, Grecian youth is thy dower. 

Which the old Gods to thee left in their retreat from the world. 



On a hill whose summit looks over tlie sea, and whose forehead 

With fresh laurels is wreathed, flapping their leaves to the 

[breeze. 

Is embalmed the Latin Bee mid the bloom of his flowers. 

Whence such sweetness he sucked that we must seek him to-dav. 



-42- 



Here are the vines introduced long ago from the vineland of 

[Hellas, 

Here amid their embrace Virgil of Rome lies entombed, 

Who with Italian winepress extracted their delicate juices; 

May he forever repose in the Greek fragance inurned! 

8 

Grapes of sweet flavor I tnsted to-day from the Mantuan vine- 

[yard, 

Which transplanted had been fj-om their Hellenic abode; 

Sweet were the jSiantuan grapes, yet sweeter the thought of that 

[vineyard 

Whence they were taken of old, whither the moments all 

[throng. 



43— 



Watch the gay festival pouring a torrent of joy c3own the Corso; 

Hark! what thunder is that rumbhng beyond the clear sky! 
Flower-girls, lazaroni, dancers, pulcinelli — 

Stop ! did the earth underneath quake to the beat of your feet ? — 
Pleasure's happiest poor-house, stronghold of King Macaroni — 

See! a red flash in the sky glares on the city and land; 
Look off yonder, a dark bloody hand with thousands of fingers 

Reaches up from a peak, clutching at Gods in the skies. 
There stretched over this city now full of the Joy of existence. 

Hovers destiny's hand, threatens as in the old world. 



lO 



The Neapolitan butterfly danced on the heights of St. Elmo, 

Spreading bright wings to the sun, drawing the look by its 

[tints; 

When it lit on a flower, T slipped up slyly to catch it, 

But from my fingers it fiew ere they could close on its wings. 



44 



What a story is read to thee daily, O beautiful Naples! 

'Tis the Pompeiari tale lying just under thine eye, 
Written in ruins whose letters are lines of tenantless houses, 

Alphabet mighty of Fate carved on this hill long ago. 
^Tis the old story of Hellas, the storj^ prophetic of Nature, 

Thy new story may He writ in this ruin, beware. 

13 

Language of Destiny, lettered in furious flames on this mountain, 
Was not then taught in the school, still it is hardly taught there. 

Reader, if not yet asleep in the rise and the fall of this voyage, 
Open thy senses afresh, now we are going to spell ; 

Wake! 'tis the hour to learn w^ith me an alphabetical lesson 
In this wonderful book; here is the Pompeian schook 



45 



"3 



As^cs on a2e>- were working; in Rome the niisihu destiiictioii. 

Which Pompeii befell in but a moment of Time; 
Rome, too, had her Vesuvius gatherino- fire and forces, 

Through her (hiration is strown what is here touched to a point, 
There it is written in large, and here it is written in little, 

In the fate of this town might she have read her own fate. 
But she could not decipher the words of the flaming inscription. 

Which revealed her own deeds turned into svmbols of fire. 



O Pompeii, what -hall we say to thee rising from ashes 

With thv bodv scarce seared, oft with the hue on thv cheek 

Thou hast ao'es on ao"es of death entombed in th\- features, 
Still to-day thou art up, in thy old seat on the hill. 

Many believe hereafter will be resurrection of bodv, 

But of the old bin-ied town^ look, resurrection has come. 



■46- 



^5 



Wander at random through vacant doors and paths of the city, 
Lose thyself in the net woven of houses and streets, 

Till thy brain becomes Pompeii alive in its mazes; 

Dreams have fled out the way, now thou art in the old world. 



i6 



From these stones w^orn deep by the tread of old generations 
Premonitions arise strangely suggesting oiu' lot; 

Man is mixed of a moment and of eternal duration. 

So say thousands of feet stamping their trace in the rock. 



17 



Here you enter the Pompeian wineshop and ask for refreshment, 

Quickly the waiter responds, dips with a long-handled cup 

Through the small neck of this wme-jar piercing the slab of tlie 

[counter; 

Cool and pure is the bowl, crown it again with a wreath. 



47- 



i8 



This Is the temple of Venus where once she was fervently 

[worshij^ped, 

Beauty in figure divine as she arose from the sea; 

Fain would I too be a worshiper, enter her temple this morning, 

Move mid her pillared grove to the fair idol within. 

19 

As we pass down the street, there opens the door of a mansion; 

Through its interior peep, swiftly the vision is borne 
On the flio^ht of the lon^- colonnades to the g;ree'n of the o^arden. 

Whither the colums are winged, but can not fly to the goal. 
Wliose can It be? Thy dwelling, O Pansa; pardon intruders; 

Long thou art absent from home; now It Is ours, here we are. 



48- 



20 

When I beheld thee, Medeia, I seemed to behold the Greek 

["woman 

Fainted by artist of old from a stront^ face in his heart; 
Her I now seek for in body, nntil I shall find the same features 

And imprint them within — image remains not a shade. 
This is the fruit of the journey: to see in the mirror Hellenic 

What the world once was, what is now fairest and best. ,v 

21 

O the maiden Hellenic, each house in the town hath her picture! 

Soon she conies out of the door, tripping the pavement along^ 

Softly the waves of her garment roll dovvni all the lines of her 

[body, 

And the rich crown of lier hair is by the Graces entwined. 

Out of the folds of her robe tliere rises sweet fragance of 

[movement, 

As the hare forearm she lifts daintily from the white plies. 

What can you do now but follow^? Whiit I pray are you here for? 

At the turn of some stieet, quick, you may glance in her face. 



49 



O fair Ijoy, aioiiiui this urn where thy ashes are restin<2:, 
Xvmphs are clancing- in glee to the mad Rute of the Faun; 

Joyous was ever thy life, each da}' \\:\h the bloom of a banquet, 
Throu<>h this g'ate of the tomb on thou dost leap with a laugh. 

Still \Aith this rout of merry musicians and dancers around thee, 
E\"n old Hades will ^mile, all his dark grot will be lit. 



This is the Pompeian school-house ^vherc anciently swayed a 

[grim master, 

Open still is the school, enter and study its book. 

Scholars have come and are gone, to-day they arc coming and 

Pedagogue too can be seen, if thou wilt glance at thy side. 

What is here taught do you ask? The reading and writing of 

[ruin; 

But what is learnt from old bricks .'^ Epigrams, spell him the 

[word. 



■50— 



34 



Many an image doth lie in thy ashen embrace, Pompeii; 

Statues repose there unviewed, till they awake in the sun; 
Ancient legend^ writ on thy walls, is born into color, 

Gems lie there in the earth, cut w^th the lines of a Grace. 
But of ail of the images that lie hid in thy bosom, 

Greatest by far is thyself — Destiny's image art thou. 

-5 

Destiny's workings within our world thou deeply dost image, 
We thy affliction lament, though we are blessed by thy pain; 

For the Gods have done thee a wrong, biit mankind a blessing, 
Suffering smiteth the part that the great whole may be saved. 

36 

Destiny smiteth the one with her scepter, that all be forever; 

Slayeth this moment of Time, that so Eternity be; 
Evil she is to the moment, but to eternity holy; 

Wrecked she Pompeii then, hence thou beholdest it now. 



51 — 



37 



Who is the giant now under Vesuvius near merry Naples? 

Dead he is not but he breathes heavily as in a dream. 
What is he dreaming? Dangerous visions of fire and sulphur, 

As in some passion he rolls, turning from this side to that. 

Dead he is not, but alive, though just at this moment he sleepeth; 

What will he do when he wakes? See the scarred face of the 

[mount. 



28 



O Vesuvius, thy torn lips loudly speak a new language. 

Hot are thy thunderous words, breaking out deep from thy 

[heart, 

Orator ancient, red is the stream of thy speech to thy people, 

Dark and fateful thy breath furiously winds to the Gods. 

What art thou saying, O Titan? Thy mighty foreboding 

[interpret? 

Aught there is underneath wrecking the world overhead. 



■52- 



29 

Hesiod, seeing Vesuvius we have to see with thy vision, 
And to think with thy thought all this upheaval of fire; 

'Tis thy song of the battle between the new Gods and the Titans? 
Clear thy hint underneath flows in thy speech as a rill. 

Look! our pathway Hellenic has wandered now into thy jooem, 
Here is the work of the earth, there is the word of the bard. 

Here a peep thou canst take deep into the smithy of Cyclops, 

For the King of the skies see now the thunderbolts forged, 

Which he hurls in his wrath at the wicked. Then look down 

[the mountain. 

Thou wilt behold all his foes — pierced they lie strown with 

[the shafts. 

31 

Titans I saw whose limbs had been scattered all over the 

[mountain, 

Writhing still they lay skewered by bolts of high Jove; 

There with bundles of limbs wound together fell huge Hundred- 

[Handed; 

Knotted in wrath are his thews, vain is the effort to rise. 



53- 



32 

Often I wonder if still at some jar in the whirl of the ages 
That old war of renown is to be kindled afresh, 

Namely, between the Titans and Jupiter, near to Olympus, 
For authority's right over the sons of the Earth. 

If so, will the Olympian father again be the winner. 
Or on him will the hills this time be piled by his foes? 

33 

Jupiter's chain holds him down, but somehow he always recovers, 
Often he makes the attempt from his low bed to arise. 

Battles have no end, though thousands of ages asunder, 
Titans put down in old Greece, will in new Italy rise. 

Battles have no end, they have to be fought over always. 
Victory masks in defeat, could we but see all the Gods. 



■u- 



34 

Fickle Victoria, daughter of Fortune, forever is changing 
Into tlie form of her foe, giving her plumage to him; 

Bright are her feathers, strutting erect all over her body, 

But each tick of the clock strips a small quill from her wings. 

She in the happiest moment of triumph begets her ow^n victor, 
Who will pluck her last plume, leaving her naked Defeat. 

35 

Mountain of fire that once overwhelmed the fair plain of 

[Pompeii, 

Is thy master a God, or a fierce demon in wrath? 
See thy best and thy worst deed into one action united, 

Thou by destruction hast saved what else had perished by Time, 
Provident kindness looks out from the mask of wretched disaster, 

Evil and Good in one shape ever are fatally blent. 



55 



36 



Agony, printed in Lava, is read from this side of the mountain; 

See how thousands of snakes he intertwined round a heart; 

Now they are cold and of stone, though once they upreared 

[their long bodies, 

Writhing and hissing through flames in the fierce torment C)f 

[pain; 

Now they are but an image which has been moulded by Vulcan 

Deep in the smelted Earth where his dark forge is at work. 



37 



Vulcan doth mould in the under world too, there ruled by the 

[Titan, 

Fearful and vast are his shapes poured at Cyclopean forge. 

Better I love his works that are made in Olympian workshop. 

Where he dwells with the Gods, filling their world with his 

[forms. 

Beautiful Venus, his spouse, there wreathes her laugh in his 

[labor, 

Near him the Graces abide, casting their glance in his shop. 



56- 



38 



Homely Vulcan, begrimed is thy hand as thou smitest the anvil, 

Channeled through soot on thy front burst the great torrents 

[of sweat, 

Shaggy the hair on thy chest upsprings like brush on the hill- 

[side. 

And among Gods thou art lame, limping about at thy work. 

Still a God thou, whom all men will adore, for thou fixest 

Beautiful forms that would wilt, were they not touched by 

[thy hand. 



39 



Look now back at the blow — Greek deities smote thee, Pompeii, 
For degrading their forms, ravishing wildly their art ; 

All their passions thou hast without their Olympian spirit, 
Gods for thy ornaments are. Goddesses, too, for thy lust. 



-57— 



4o 

Roman, colossal thy will, gigantic thy virtue, I fear thee; 

But thou canst not enjoy, senses will turn thee to swine. 
Why must a man be a demon in hell, or a saint in high heaven? 

Why not a man on this Earth, dowered with body and soul? 
See, our voyage has strayed to the path of Grecian Ulysses, 

Who the Sirens could hear, yet of their talons beware; 

And the magical draught he could drain of fair Circe, the 

[charmer. 

Still he remained a true man, could even rescue his friends; 
Years upon years he stayed in the bower of sweetest Calypso, 

Never there losing himself, never forgetting his own. 
He has enjoyment, he has restraint too, both in one body. 

Both in one soul he unites, making the music of life, 
As it is sung in thy melody ancient, poetical Homer, 

Rocking my modern refrain on thy harmonious seas. 



58— 



41 

O what joy in this epigrammatical voyage, what sorrow! 

Out of two threads it is spun, both are in me and in thee. 

Both are in Rome and Pompeii, the pain and the pleasure of 

[being 

One with the soul of all time, one with its bloom and decay. 

Epigrams, come, let us go, w^e must haste to the end of our 

[voyage, 

Gladly and sadly we leave, ancient Pompeii, farewell. 

43 

Questioner, crafty Ulysses, subtlety made thee a skeptic. 
Intellect stirred up the doubt always at word of the God; 

Boldly thou wilt not believe in the promise of Goddess CalypsOy 

Till she has sworn the great oath by the dark river of Hell; 

And no faith thou showest at first in the words of the Sea 

[Nymph. 

All the Gods thou dost doubt, till they have proven themselves. 

Even Pallas, thy mighty protectress, must show her own wisdom, 

Ere she could win th}^ belief that thou wertcome to thy home. 



59- 



43 



With thy guidance I too have reached the bright land of 

[Pheacians, 

Where Alcinous dwelt, wonderful monarch of eld. 

This is his island, upon yon hill overlooking the harbor 

He with his counsellors sat, grave wnth the thought of the 

[State. 

Often about the true site of Pheacia the learned have striven, 
Playing at blindman's buff in the dark garret of lore; 

Everywd'.ere thou must see it, on land, on island, on mountain^ 
Thou must see it in Greece, anything else is not seen. 

Mythic Pheacia, beheld by Ulysses, is actual Hellas, 

Imaged beforehand in words dropped from the lips of the bard, 

Borne from the thought to the deed by the hero- — a prophecy 

[splendid 

Of one beautiful w^orid iieralding others to be. 



60- 



44 



What a wonderful raft was made at the grot of Calypso, 

From thy cunning of hand shaping the thought of thy brain? 

That was the parent whose progeny now glides over the Ocean, 
As the bird in the air, braving Poseidon's fierce ire. 

Well may we pardon the wrath of the God, divinely foreseeing 
How this child of that raft scornfully sports on his waves. 

45 

King Alcinous, thy fair palace has had fairer offspring! 

Thou art ruling the world still by the beautiful form. 
Out of thy mansion majestic was born in a song the Greek temple, 

Sentineled round with a choir — Titans columnar of stone. 
Bearing forever their burden to hymns of a Parian measure, 

Wearing out lieaviest Fate to a Pindaric high strain. 

Look! those boys of thy garden with tapers are moving to 

[statues, 

Seeming to w^alk into stone while they are bringing the light; 

Hellas springs out of thy palace all sculptured with actions heroic 

Even the Gods we discern turniuGf to marble bv faith. 



- () I 



46 

Happy if each of these poems may rightly be called a small 

[temple! 

First the colonnade pass, then you will come to the cell; 

If you enter the deepest recess, you will see the fair Goddess, 

And the worshiper, too, bent at her shrine in low prayer. 

47 

Poets, if they be poets, are makers, making an image 

Which is to stamp old Time into his thousandfold forms. 

And each thing of the senses, each piece of indifferent matter, 

Sealed by their touch with a soul, draws a full breath of the 

[Gods. 

Thou, old Homer, wert the first builder in Greece, the first carver, 
Afterward she could but turn fancies of thine into stone; 

Architects followed thee, building thy poem aloft into temples, 
Sculptors followed thee too, thinking in marble thy line. 



62- 



48 



On thy watery way I am sailing, endurer Ulysses, 

I look down at the waves, there is the scowl of the sea, 

I look up at the storm-cloud, here it shattered thy vesssel, 

Yonder I see too the height which then encouraged thy heart. 



49 



Wise Ulysses, thy work has been done for thyself and the ages^ 

Thou has suffered for us, all who may read of thy pain; 
Fighting thy desperate battle with Fate, thou hast fought, too 

[our battle, 

Freeing thyself in thy deed, us in thy word thou hast freed. 
Such is forever the hero, we share the reward of his sorrow. 

What he has done for himself, is for the rest of the world. 
When through Hades he goes, he takes us too in his journey^ 

When he to Ithaca comes, we are along, here it is. 



-63— 

Reader I beg thee to step to my place on this ship and look 

[forward ; 

Gladly to thee I would give all that belongs to myself. 
Over the light-curling ripples is sportively rocking the vessel, 

On the sea to the East, whither our voyage doth tend. 
Now we have come to the water once smit by the oar of Ulysses 

Now we have entered the world sunnily built of the Alyth, 
Slowly transmuting itself from the fancy down into the senses, 

Fables of ages we see drop into Nature's own garb. 
Look far out on the line of the weaves, there rises Poseidon, 

Heaving the billows suggest presences subtle within, 
Proteus ancient, daughters of Nereus, thousands of daughters, 

All know their w^orshipper new, peer from the sea and salute. 
It is sunrise, but in front of the sun is a mountain, 

Piled on its top lie the clouds bordered w^ith fringes of beams; 
Helios cannot be seen now, still thou w^ilt know it is sunrise. 

Out of an opening deep slants a long armful of rays. 

And from many a crevice are breaking great fragments of 

[splendor, 

Which I would gather somehow, catch in these epigrams too. 



■64- 



Biit O behold! before thee is resting the sunland of Hellas, 
Bursting the mist of the morn over the space of the sea, 

Clouds have left but a belt of thin gold bent round the horizon , 
Mountains are singing a song from the high seats of the Muse; 

Leap to the shore and gather the w^orld's most radiant moment^ 
As it here shone in the past, here it is shining to-day. 

Corallion, see yon cloud in the heavens above thee: 
It is rain or snow^ — chilled are its drops are warm ? 

1 would like to be rained from the cloud down into thy window,. 

Or a snow-flake be — drop on thy lip and there melt. 



—05 



52 



Spring- has now come, she covers the prostrate earth with 

[caresses. 

Show me the lover who yields first to the thrill of her lips; 

I beHeve it to be this willow. Look at the leaflets 

Breaking out over the bark, at her soft passionate touch, 

Row after row; then glance at the willow-bound brook in the 

[meadow, 

Far you can follow its bend, traced in the foliage new. 

Next in her love is this group of saplings, fair youths of the 

[plantain. 

Dancing a chorus of twigs tuned to her amorous breath. 

This old oak is the last of the forest to yield to her rapture. 

Bare still as winter his boughs, fringed with dead leaves of 

[last year. 

But even he is begining to smile and respond to her kisses. 
See this outgushing bud throbbed from his savage hard heart r 

Heart of oak, yield thee, this is the season of soft Aphrodite, 
This is her land ; stout Alars threw down his shield at her glance. 



66 



53 



Eros, much of my life and my lay to thee I have given; 

Faithful vassal in verse, I w^ould repose nov^ av^hile, 
Till I v^rite these epigrams. Unto these vvrandering children 

Would I tranquillity lend, joys of a ramble in spring 

Mid the quiet of hills, in the golden repose of the sunbeams, 

Voiced w^ith low murmur of brooks, far from thy passionate 

[call. 

Later again from thy torch light a fire, a new^ fire in my bosom, 

Fiercer than ever before kindle my tongue to a flame. 



()7 — 



54 



Nature is now a fair maiden who dresses herself for the marriage, 
Come and look at her thus, all her old lovers she lets 

Into the secret of her betrothal that comes with the spring time, 

She will take no offence, modestly peep at her ways. 

Over her body she draws in her triumph a flowing green 

[garment; 

Emeralds under her touch burst from each bud on the bough; 

Garlands of blossoms she winds round her bosom, velvety, 

[vermeil, 

Here they are white with her hand, there they are blue w^ith 

[her eye. 

Ha! the bright face of the bridegroom peering just over the 

[mountain! 

'Tis the new sun from the skies flinging his gold on her path. 

Now her song she beo^ins,her sweet passion from all of the tree 

[tops, 

With her each bird on the twig chancs its own bridal refrain. 



BOOK THIRD. 



-69 



Each faint rustle of branches above is a Goddess' whisper, 
Each petty murmur of brooks is a low laugh of the Nymphs, 

And a sweet little epigram steals from the glance of each maiden. 
Dew drops hung on each leaf are the pure tears of the Muse. 

But the miracle is, thou too art becoming a poem 

In this clime of the Gods; wonder, O man, at thyself! 



Here on this spot knit together are sea, and valley, and mountain, 

Here is the youth of this plain by the old hills overlooked; 

Here is the joy of the senses, but mingled with warnings of 

[wisdom. 

Here are the flowers of Spring wreathing the fruits of the 

[Fall. 

Hellas, a universe thou! so small, and yet thou art able 

Clearly to image the world, which, though it was, is to be. 



70- 



Hellas, I look at thy body now lying down under my vision, 
Over thy bosom I peep, heaving to mountain and peak; 

Athens, I see thee, the head of this beautiful body of Hellas, 

From the blue waves upraised, cushioned on violet beds. 

Brain-born child of the brain-born daughter of Zeus the Olym- 

[pian. 

Who hath named thee her own, doubly endowed with her 

[mind. 

Fathered of father of Gods, and mothered of mother of wisdom; 

There is Acropolis too, which is thy battle-lit eye, 
Glancing afar on the sea, yet smiling on blue Attic hill-tops; 

Of this Athenian eye look in the pupil so clear. 
That is the Parthenon, sunlit, reposeful, the Goddess' dwelling 

Out of it flashes a beam lighting the soul of the world. 



71 



Quarrymen seemed I to hear as they smote the deep rock of the 

[Muses, 

For the pure white leaf on wliich to grave a new word; 
Often the hammer resounded afar through the vale of Ilissus, 

Temples and Gods into life moved at the sound of the stroke. 
Over the water came echoes from Rome, enfeebled by distance, 

Laden with dust of the past Europe gave answer to Rome. 
Last came the echo of hope, unbodied it rose from the future, 

Crossing Atlantic tides mightily heaving between. 



To the violet summit I climbed of strong Lycabettus, 

Bound are its sides wnth the rocks made for eternity's v/alls; 

There I picked but a weed as it struggled alone through the 

[crevice. 

Raised it up to my lips, thoughtlessly strolling along. 

But how gracious the flavor that cunningly touched all the 

[senses — 

Flavor distilled by a weed merely from Attica's rocks. 



■72- 



Mad are my eyes! to-day they are merrily slaves of my fancy; 

A Greek maiden I saw who tiirough the ages had dropped; 
She was one of the forms that danced in the chorus of Pindar, 

And she sang his high hymns, moving to music of flutes. 



Merry Anacreon, many an epigram tells of thy days and their 

[joyance. 

And thy epitaph too ever is written afresh; 

Wine and Love and the Muse made thy life one intoxication, 

Even thy death is a feast lighting grim Hades with joy. 

All made thee drunk, the twitter of swallows, the chirp of 

[cicadas, 

Love of maiden and youth, gift of mad Bacchus as well. 

Nature becomes a melodious banquet, reeling in verses, 

Roses and ivy and vines twirl round thy lines with a laugh. 

But the most maddening draught to thyself and to me is thy 

[poem, 

A true toinger thou art, on tliine own song thou art drunk. 



— i .\- 



8 



Far I rambled to-day through the grove in the vale of Kephissus, 

There in the Olives I found hidden a blackberry grot, 

Laden w^ith fruit was each pliant bush, yet hung with fresh 

[blossoms, 

Dark were the berries that shone throuo^h the white wreath 

[on the stalk. 

Now it is winter, yet see the full fruit alongside of the flower! 

Ripeness of age in this clime has the fresh blossom of youth, 
I approach the fair harvest desiring to taste the new flavor, 

Also the f rao:rance to scent breathed from the flowering: shrub. 

Heigh! what a rustle of wings is flapped from hundreds of 

[birdlings, 

Who a festival held hidden in berries and buds. 

Far through the orchard they scatter, then drop in the tree-tops; 

Hark! what a melodv trills out of the silverv leaves. 



7-i- 



O the mad Attic joys now dancing aloft on the mountains! 

And the gentler delights tripping through forest and stream I 

Armies of happy existence move out of the trees and the 

[fountains, 
Whole new peoples spring up over the emerald floor, 

Slipping into the world for a moment, then slipping out of 't, 

Hark, the new song they begin suddenly over my head. 

lO 

Scattered along on my journey are many old fragments of 

[marble. 

Showing a crystalline smile on the sere face of the ground ; 

Still they gladden the wanderer mid the dull rubbish around 

[them. 

Though they be but the chips left by some workman of old. 

These were the fragments imprisoning sunny Ionian columns. 

Till by the chisel set free out of the fetters of rock ; 

These were the pieces in which was nestled the form of the 

[Goddess, 

Look once more at the shell whence the great Pallas escaped. 



i o — 



II 



Once this plain, now so rocky tind thirsty, was full of dense 

[foliage, 

Rich aviaries of song wxre all the tops of the trees, 
Whence a jDcrennial runnel of music ran down from each leaflet, 

Nourishment sweet for the tongues lapping melodious dew. 

Still I can see in this soil green sprouts of many a sapling 

That would the grove restore where the high singers once 

[lodged. 



12 



Look over Attica! deserts of rock are her fields and her 

[highlands; 

Orphaned of warblers she seems, orphaned of trees for their 

[seats; 

But a sharp search will discover still many a little, low bramble^ 

Wherein birdlings sit piping a wee tender note. 

When to-day I had found a green bush, it vv^as full of young 

[singers 

Warbling some old Attic chimes tuned to ancestral high strains. 



76-- 



13 



Through Attic meadows I stroll; I come to a grove of broad 

[poplars 

Where the shepherd breeze plays a low note on his pipe; 

Round the roots of the trees is running on pebbles the brooklet, 

Murmuring strains to the brink, fresh from the home of the 

[Nymphs. 

But the tree-tops have given a refuge to sweet Attic singers 
That from their leafy abode throw out a fountain of song; 

List to the wealth that they fling on the air in melodious revel. 
Hundred-throated with joy in the debauch of their strains. 

H 

On this classical soil one cannot help being an augur — 

Watches the feathery flight, lists to the humming of wings. 

That he may find out the will of the Gods and set it to music: 
Nature i's deity's hymn, folding the earth in a song. 



— i i 



15 

Poesy is, O reader, not merely the copy of Nature; 

Nature's voice she must win, breathing it into a word; 
But that word has divinity's soul in the body of Nature, 

From her lips you must catch inward the strain of the God. 

16 

Often before have I rambled through fields in the Spring, said 

[the shepherd; 

But the green grass-blade to me v^^as but a blade of green grass; 
Or, 1 thought it was good for a spear of dry hay in a bundle, 

Which w^ould nourish my flock when the bare winter had come. 
Now to my glance, as I wander around the green Attic meadows, 

A new being it springs suddenly up at my feet. 



78- 



^7 

Poem I never could relish that babbled of Nymphs and the Muses ; 

Lifeless they were to the eye, meaningless unto the soul; 
But in this soil they now rise as of old to the vision Hellenic, 

They each moment are born, breathing, yea, speaking to me. 

Seize them thou must as they spring into life in the trees, in the 

[fountains; 

Set them no longer to grind, bound to the treadmill of verse. 

Leave them alone if thou art not able to merrily catch them, 

Bathing in the lone brook, singing their note on the hills. 

i8 

Gently the rill flows over white pebbles of Pentelic marble. 

Into the Olives it winds vanishing under the leaves; 

See the clear stream with a fiow like the folds of the Pythian 

[priestess, 

As to the altar she goes hung on the thought of the God. 



79-- 



19 



Winged arc words, O Homer, but feathered from various pinions ; 

Some have the eagle's wing, darting adown on the prey; 

Some have the buzzard's, but hark ! altogether the most have 

[the screech-owl's; 

Be the small humming-bird's mine, always he hums w^hile he 

[sips. 

20 

Winged is ever thy word, O Homer; such is thy vision 

Tiiat thou beholdest it fly, sped on its way by the Muse; 

Winged thy word, O bard; and, propelled on the breath of thy 

[music, 

Soars aloft with a thought tuned to the flight of the spheres 

21 

Poet is he who to speech transferring the image of Nature, 
Therein hidden transfers also the form of the God. 



-80- 



22 



This is Hellas, the thyme you can pluck from the stoniest hillside; 

Thyme here grows from the rocks, thence all its fragrance it 

[draws. 



23 

What is the highest of Nature, the noblest of things of the 

[senses? 

What but this body of life? said the fair (jreek to himself. 

Let it be trained until it become a mirror transparent 

In whose movement you see all the fine work of the soul. 

24 

No, thy form was not made to be stretched on the cross of 

[distortion, 

But for the Graces' abode joined to Apollo's clear rhythm ; 

Still the Poet can hear, as he notes thy victorious movements 

Hymning thy body's refrain, melody deep for his song. 



81— 



'Tis the Barbarian's mark to behold his own shame in his body^ 
And to hide it in swathes lest it offend the clear eye; 

But the Greek soul has purifted body to motion of spirit 
That the immortal Gods take it with joy as their own. 

26 

Tender verses I pluck on my path from the tip of each leaflet,. 

From unfolding soft buds sip I the dew of the morn, 
Sweet little epigrams lightly I suck from the lips of each flowret, 

All the sweet treasure I drip into a honeycomb rare 
Made out of hundreds of cellules with geometric precision; 

Still from the clear waxen fount gushes the heart of the flowers. 



—82— 

CORYDON. 

Where hast thou been, O Tityrus, where hast thou been, errant 

[shepherd ? 

For thou hast fed on some sweets that in the mountain grow 

[wild ; 

Fragrantly wreathes thy breath as it subtly pervadeth the cabin, 
Filling with incense the air fit for the home of a God; 

And thy words, too, thy words are tenderly laden with fragrance, 

As they drop from thy tongue when thou art telling thy tale. 

Strange that the sound of thy voice is transfused with the odor 

[of flowers; 

Tell me, where hast thou been, Tityrus, where hast thou been ? 

Tityrus. 

Wandering lone in my journey I came to the ridge of Hymettus, 

And ascended the hill thence to look over the plain; 

There I lay down to repose in the shade mid the herbs and the 

[flowers, 

Whiling the hours away watching the bees at their work. 

Thence I followed their flight by the hum of the air of the 

[mountain, 



-83 



Till I came to their stores which I then sipped to my fill; 

And I have learned how to find the sweet treasures of blooming 

[Hymettus, 

Daily now honey I have, else I am sure I should die. 

CORYDON. 

Thither, O Tityrus, let me go with thee, I too have a longing 
To behold the fair mount hiding such wealth in its rocks. 

Give me to silently breathe of the air of the thyme-scented hillside, 

And at melodious work bright golden hummers to see 

Driving their wings in the sunbeams; through the rocks let me 

[follow. 

Till I may taste the sweet drop stored in Hymettus away. 

38 

Slowly I climb to the top, the rest of the heights lie below me, 
Which, as I looked from the plain, seemed very lofty and great; 

Yonder I was, I reflect now, laboring joyfully upward. 

There on a stone I sat down, taking repose from my toil. 

Now I glance back from this seat where I rest, I write a short 

[poem, 

Brave little epigram, up — quickly advance to the top. 



84 



29 

Many a new-born kid you may see on the rocks of Hymettus, 
Dropped by the mother there suddenly touched Avith the pang 

Ushering Hfe into h'ght; then quickly she turns to her offspring 
With a fond gleam from her eye kindled by Nature's deep joy. 

At a draught of milk from the udder young knees will stiffen, 
Thousands of kids in their sport leap on the sides of the hills. 

Sweet was the voice of the shepherdess, tender the word of the 

[shepherd, 

She always looked on her babe, he always looked on his spouse; 
Under the shade of a plantain she nursed her first little infant, 

While the lambs lay around shutting their eyes in the sun. 
Thou, young wife art born over again in the life of thy offspring, 

Motherhood too is a birth, mother thou art and a babe. 
Mark! each suck of the stout little lips at thy plenteous fountain^ 

Each little kick on thy heart changes thee into thy boy. 



a 



31 



New Hymcttian quari-ies of marble have lately been c)pene(l, 
vSee the laborer there elearing the rubbish awaj^ 

Where was the cloister. At noontide in the calm shade of its ruins 
He will nap for a time; this is its very last use. 

32 

On Hymettus thou still canst behold the remains of the quarries 
Which for the marble were wrought, bringing it out to the sun ; 

Now deserted they lie, filled up with the rubbish of ages, 
Yet beneath all the waste wait the old treasures for light. 

Open the quarries once more now hid in the heart of Hymettus, 
Bring out its crystalline stores, still it has temples and Gods. 

33 

Poesy dost thou find in thy strolls on rugged Hymettus? 

Why, the mountain is bare, harvest it has but of stones. — 
Yet the bee will find on these rocks the sweetest of honey ; 

Out of their caverns and creaks hives he will build for his stores. 



86 



34 

We may behold the mythical world thou didst live in, O Homer, 
From Hymettus the blue looking across toward Troy; 

All the Gods are astir now, and, summoned to hold their assembly, 
Rise in the sound of the sea, move in the song of the land; 

And to me, the poor mortal, Hermes is bringing their message, 
Each little thought of the heart is a light waft of the God. 

35 ^ 

Yonder I see that I strayed as I look from the top of the mountain. 
Tarried too long for the flower, not long enough for the fruit 

Of my journey to ripen in sunshine: double my error; 

Still I had to stray there, if I would mount to this height. 

Many the lovv^er small summits that swell over graceful Hymettus, 

Some with their blossoms and bees, some with their thistles 

[and thorns. 



-8 



36 

Twain Is the being of man, composed of the soul and the body, 
Twain is Nature herself, made up of good and of bad; 

And Hymettus is twain, of the bees and the goats the one parent, 

Both thou must take by the way, if thou dost wish to be all. 

Sip the sweet honey drawn by the bees from the heart of the 

["flowers, 

But thee I warn — thou wilt pass through the rough tract of 

[the goats. 

37 

In my ramble I w^ent far astray in a gorge of Hymettus, 
Now I see my mistake plain as the sun on yon rock, 

And I wonder how I could lose the clear lines of this mountain, 
All of which seem to direct straight to the beautiful goal. 

What seems easy is hardest, what seems near is most distant, 
Sunlit Hymettus, to-day thou art my image of life. 



88 



38 



Two are the sides of Hymettus, O wanderer; steep and ungainly 
Is the whole slope of the mount, when from fair Athens it turns ; 

Yet how graceful and gradual is the descent toward Athena's 
Marble abode, where she lies resting on violet beds. 

But deceive not thyself by the view, this way is more distant, 
It to the temple doth lead which the wise Goddess indwells. 



39 

Yes, I saw the coarse goats as they fed on the top of Hymettus, 
Browsing the live-long day on a mere bramble of thorns 

Whose toothed leaves ran out to a point in a truculent briar; 

Still the goats would devour leaflets and twigs with the spines. 

How to live on the bramble that chokes up the ways of the 

[Muses, 

The example is here — one must be changed to a goat. 



89 



4o 



What! is it true that foul goats now feed on this honey-dewed 

[mountain? 

Yes; for the note of a Muse Hst to that sensual snort. 

Here they too have been lodged, just where the high summit is 

[highest, 

And in the shadiest dell, under the pleasantest pine. 

How do r know? thou askest. Hymettus is turned to a dung-hill, 

That is the sign of the goat, feculent drops lie around. 



41 



The whole day like a goat you may browse on the leaves 

[thorn-bordered, 

Which now grow on the mount where all the Muses once sang; 

Sprigs you may pluck by the handful in search of a savor v' 

Through all the cotes you may pass, there not a panspipe is 

[found. 

Turn then aside to the musical stream sent down from the ancients, 

You will find the old mount full of bright flowers and son g 



90 



42 



Oft have I strayed from the path, but always returned from my 

[straying; 
Often have I been lost till I discovered myself. 

Fiercely I stormed through the weeds, I fought on my path w^ith 

[the brambles, 

Burs I picked from my coat, thorns I pulled out of my flesh. 

But as I wandered alone, not knowing whither I tended, 

Flowers I plucked in the fields, fruits too I culled from the 

[trees. 

Labyrinthine Hymettus, one must be lost in thy windings, 

In thy honeycomb lost, ere of thy sweetness he taste. 



43 

Epigrams, wake! ye seem to have fallen asleep or are sleepy; 

Weave to a bov/er your forms over the wayfarer's path, 

As he leaps on the stones and roams through the dells of the 

[mountain : 

Then on Hymettus' top lay the bright wreath ye have wound. 



91- 



44 



What is thy thought as thou strollest through hollows and hills 

[of Hymettus? 

Life is a honeycomb too, made up of millions of cells 

Which are called moments of Time; perchance they are utterly 

[empty, 

But may with honey be filled from the sweet flowers of earth. 

Every minute to-day is a void little cell, by the Gods to thee 

[given, 

Be now busy as bees, with a sweet deed fill the cell. 



45 

Now the height of Hymettus I touch, of my efforts the highest, 

Always before have I stopped, worn by the difficult w^ay. 

From this spot I can see the whole plain stretched humbly 

[below me, 

Over whose equal exj^anse wildly I wandered to-day. 

But the view that pleases me most, looking back on my pathway, 

Is, I see over the heights which I once reached, and then left. 



■92 



46 

Now I look out on the world from the top of sunny Hymettus; 

Far below me it lies, all its mad struggle unheard, 
A nd its bounds on the farthest sea I hold in my vision ; 

How does it seem ? you inquire. Look in these epigrams here. 
Hundreds of mirrors 1 place them, always returning one image; 

Though the facets be small, each will reflect the full form. 

47 

Overlaid with the gold of the sun is the top of the mountain, 

To those treasures I wend, shunning mad Eros the while; 

There is the softest caress of the Muse, and the pipe of the 

[shepherd, 

Soothing the wound of the heart in the repose of the hills. 

But I soon shall return, again I shall love, I know it; 

The sole freedom I have is to be thrall of the God. 



-9;? 



4S 

Tell me what ails thee, O friend? Art mortal, hast surely the 

[heait-ache; 

Then go with me to-day, yonder are heights in the sun ; 

Bathe the still-ebbing wound of thy heart in the quiet of hill-tops, 

There alone thou canst be with the great Healer, the God. 

49 

Yesterday green was the mountain, but to-day it is hoary; 

Snow has fallen above, covered its temples with grey; 
Yesterday thou wert a youth upspringing in bloom to the heavens, 

Ah, to-day thou art old, gone through thy time at a bound. 
See hovv^ age is barely divided from youth by a snow-storm, 

Crushed into one wild nieht all of thv vears are a dream. 



94 



5o 

Chill is the wind that bears me along toward snowy Hymettus, 

The lone shepherd now comes down from the mount with his 

[flocks, 

He has put up his panspipe, snow has palsied his fingers, 

Flowers no longer will bloom, springing above the rude rock 

Into the sunlight; every bee has fled from the hill-side; 
Poesy freezes to-day; Poet too shivers along. 

Round the top of the mountain are whirling the flakes of the 

[snow-storm. 

While below in the plain softly are playing the beams; 

Darkly Hymettus doth muffle his head in his w^ind-w^oven mantle, 

laying serene on her couch Parthenon still has the sun. 



-95-- 



52 

Aeschylus saw yon sea when he spoke of its numberless laughter; 

Now its face you behold sparkling with millions of smiles 
Merrily racing each other in sport to the Isthmian race-course, 

The great games of the God still they keep up at his shore. 
But look deep in the water and watch its laughing reflection, 

There the Olympian world dimples with smiles in the waves. 

53 

Look at this cairn, the monument built by others before me 
Right on the top of the mount, far overlooking the \'ale, 

Till the glancing victorious sea, whose flutter of wavelets 
Plays round Salamis still p^ans of warriors of old. 

Touch with thine eye the great heart of the sea in the distance, 
Thou its deep beating wilt feel as if a battle were there. 



96 



54 

Clear are the lines of this mountain, like to the forms of the 

a [sculptor, 

And transparent the air softly embracing its curves; 

Up here I stand, not a soul in the plain there below can behold 

[me. 
Still in Greek sunshine I stand, that is my only reward. 



55 

Why were the sides of this mountain, when they were rolled 

[into ridges. 

Fixed by the hand of the God just at their tenderest swell? 

Look, you will see the reason. There the broad folds of the 

[ancients 

Sculptured over its slant sweep with their trail in the plain* 



i)7 



This book of epigrams, what shall I call it? A handful of 

[pebbles 

Gathered in my ascent from the rough side of the mount. 

And that writinsr I scratch on all of them? That is mv verse- 

[mark ; 

With some faith thou must try, if the device thou wilt read. 



57 



Here are my stones to the cairn upreared by my dear predecessors, 
Whose great names can be read, writ on the tablets of rock;. 

On the pile I throw down my pebbles, each one is scribbled 
With some legend faint, visible scarce to the crowd. 

Still my mark on them will hereafter be always deciphered 
By a few climbers: to-day leave me this comfort at least. 



-9B— 



58 

Shepherds were piping and calling to-day all over the mountain, 
Far asunder they were, no one his fellow could see; 

Still each heai d and answered the other, in words far-resounding, 
Which in harmonious waves played through the tortuous dells. 

In my own native speech I endeavored to give them an answer, 
Set to the music I heard there on the pastoral heights. 

59 

See the shepherd who leans on yon bush, I happen to know^ him; 

Clothes are the skins of his flock, rude is the staff in his hand; 
Plain is his speech, but the word bears in it some image of Nature, 

And if he strike up a song, clear it will flow from his heart. 

Ears which hear his music, eyes which pierce his mantle, 
Find the man within, find too the beautiful soul. 



99— 



6o 



Up! the snow has fallen to-day and covered Hymettus, 

See how^ he shimmers aloft next to the clouds of the sky! 

Now we must go and behold him once more in new crystalline 

[drapery 

That falls over his sides, like the white folds of the Gods. 

6i 

Shaggy capote of the shepherd is snowy with fleeces of cloudland, 

There he stands mid his herd, white as the sheep that he 

[drives; 

But just look at the goat, the black goat, to a fleece now whitened, 

Yet with a ray of the sun he will again be a goat. 

62 

'^High-toned society I cannot find in your epigrams; bless me, 
What a vulgar set! shepherds, and goats, and yourself." 

Humble we are, I confess, although, if you scan us more closely, 
You will behold what is, not is pretending to be. 



—100— 



63 



Once I met a small bee in my walk on the top of Hymettus; 

On a bare rock he sat, as I bent over his seat. 
What! is it truth or delusion? From stones extractest thou honey 

Famed of old as to-day, delicate drop of the world? 
Friend, I hail thee! fly not away, I gladly w^ould know thee; 

Teach me how sw^eetness to draw out of the heart of the rock. 



64 



Here the old cloister is lying, now fallen to ruin and romance, 
Quiet it rests in the vale where meditation once dw^elt; 

So the cloister is passing the ^vay of the temple and column, 
In it no longer is heard prayer ascending on high. 

But the Nymph is still here, and she will remain here forever. 
Laughing out of this spring, as it leaps down the fresh stones. 



-toi— 

65 

Over the fountain the layers of rock rise up in i^raccful disoidei-, 

Temple built by the Nymphs in a wild fanciful phiy 

For those youths whose worship was sport and wliose sport was 

j~a worship: 

Here by the cloister it Hes, just the same temple of old. 

This is a seat of the Nymphs, and there in the rocks are grimaces 

Which they in mockery make, mocking the vanishing monks. 

66 

How it may be with thee, O reader, I know not. 

But as for me I rejoice, seeing the joy of this fount 

And of these rocks still filled with the happy reminders of fable; 
In these ruinous walls too 1 rejoice — let them fall. 

67 

O Pindarus, one finds in the golden strands of thy network. 

Intricate yet full of grace, all the sweet music of forms — 

Grecian youths, as they strove in the games or leapt in the 

[race-course. 

As in the contest or dance wound they fair shapes to a hymn. 



■102- 



68 



Fervid, O high-worded bard, is thy worship of youthful Apollo, 

God of wisdom and song blended in music to one; 
God of all the high harmonies, both the inner and outer; 

Let me too him revere, softly attuned to his strain. 
Hark! he hath a deep power which sets the full soul in vibration, 

To some melody pure that is beyond our own selves; 
But when the God has withdrawn his touches of innermost music, 

Back to the earth vs^e fall into unresonant clay. 



69 



Give me thy melody, give me thy theme, both flowing together, 
Word is one with the thought, form is the same as the soul; 

Legend transparently bears in the flow of thy music its moral. 
Ever tlie mode thou dost sing one is with what thou dost sing. 



103— 



7o 



Theban eagle, now thou hast shown nie where is the summit 

Of the culture of Greece, long by me sought with much toil; 

Harmony is its whole name, deep-woven through cunningest 

[measures. 

All of whose strands intertwine into one garment of song. 



71 



Still to-day you can see the white folds of the antique peplos, 
As they fall down the limbs, rounded and full, of the maid; 

And the man you behold as he strides in white tunic of linen, 
Showing the shapely turns which are our body's own song. 

Look at yon form, and know why marble was taken by sculpture 
To express the high deed done by the Great Man or God. 



104 






Even in Hellas the good and the bad oft balance each other; 

Love I the old in the new, hate I the new in the old. 

Pleasant the song of the larks as they trill in the old Attic 

[meadows, 

Hatefnl the sound of the gun, modern intruder in Greece. 
Off fly the larks, on the air float shreds of melodies ancient, 

Clear ancestral refrains, sung every day in this field. 
O^ er my head in a strife with the breeze is whizzing the bullet, 

Gun and powder and ball, why do you ravage this air? 
Your sharp music I know the chiefest note of our era, 

Still I shall follow the larks back from the new to the old. 

73 

Wings I attach in the sun to my words, bright butterfly flappers, 

That to each flow^er they flit over the slant of the mount; 

Often not more do they bear on their breath than a pin-point of 

[honey; 

Reader, out of the word thou the sweet drop must express. 



105— 



74 



Look! on this side Parthenon hes, on that side Hymettus, 

If thou canst hear with the eye, both of them chime to one note ; 

The clear temple doth echo along all the lines of the mountain. 
And the mountain of stone throbs into temples unbuilt. 



75 



Helius leans now before me upon the round ridge of Hymettus, 
Just for a moment he rests ere he mount up in the skies. 

Why doth he gaze so intently across to yon hillock behind me? 
There the Parthenon lies lit to a blaze in his glance. 

Golden the bridge that he builds in the air from summit to temple, 
Over the radiant span flit all the forms of the Gods. 

Under this bridge of his beams I walk in the shade of the valley, 

Slowly the bright structure breaks, now it doth fall round my 

[head. 



—106— 



76 

Round this mountain encircles the clay, the season, the lifetime; 

Butterfly, bee, and man act out their deed on its breast. 
Of its sweetness thou may est be able to suck up a mouthful, 

If thou a butterfly art, seeking the food of a day. 
But if truly a bee thou art, thou wilt gather a hiveful, 

Or a lifeful thou wilt, if thou art truly a man. 

77 

Satirist Hornet his poison don't bear in his tongue nor his forehead. 
Nature has hinted her mind by the mere place of his sting. 

78 

Hornets are reared on Hymettus, I saw the yellow -ringed body, 
Poison will poison distil from the pure heart of the flower. 

In my wrath I struck with my hat at the daring intruder; 
This was his voice : Have a care lest thou a hornet be too. 



10 



79 



Cast an ocean of brine on one little beam of Apollo, 
Still it will glow as before, dance on the envious surge; 

Such is merit. O friend. Though calumny seek to darken its lustre 
It will not be put out, even will beam on the foe. 



80 



Yonder is Athens, it seemeth as if from this height I can touch it; 

Boldly I walk down the hill when a deep gorge cuts me off; 
Painfully then I return and try from the top a new pathway, 

Till I by brambles am stopped ever in view of the town. 
Now I go back and spy out the stores of Hymettus before me, 

Hearing its song on my way, soon I to Athens am come. 



108 ~~ 



This is the Pynx, you say, whence spoke the great orator Attic, 
Still may be heard from these stones eloquent echoes of old; 

This broad platform hewn from the rock is a voice adamantine 

That through the ages resounds warning the races of men. 

Gone are the dwellings and temples and men that crowded this 

[summit. 

But the voice has remained — hark! it is speaking to-day. 

83 

Only behold this stone of the Pnyx, altogether the greatest, 
Though the others are large, larger than elsewhere, you think. 

Here it rests in the wall, it was raised by the hand of a Titan, 
To outlast all the strokes in the great fall of a world. 

Let us call it Demosthenes, rock of perdurable grandeur. 
Orator now on his stand, uttering still his great word. 



109 



-^3 

Mid these ruins, O wanderer, this should be thv first lesson, 
To he able to hear speeeh without lips, without words; 

Study the lang-uage of stones, put together their old broken story, 
Hear their destroyer speak too, smiting them down in his wrath. 

84 

Athens, 1 fear thee; thou wxrt the favorite haunt of th.e virgin, 

Who has given thee name, v\'ho thy chief temple indwelt; 

Stern and severe is thy glance, O Pallas, thou maid of cool reason, 

Knowdedo^e and art are thv Sfifts, scornino^ the lis^lit plav of 

[Love. 

Venus is hateful to thee, and all the lorn lover's caprices, 
This I must not forget^ as I thy favor implore. 

Still on this mountain you often can hear the soft trill of panspipe. 
Notes of it rise on the air tuning the slope to its strain, 

One they are with the sunshine over the tranquilest ridges, 
One with the hum of the l)ee, one with the beat of the heart. 



1 lo- 



ss 



The cicada, long famous for music, I saw on a grass-blade, 

He was the last of his race fallen on days of decline; 

The green freshness of Spring had changed to the dullness of 

[Autumn, 

Scarce could he balance his wings, and he no longer could sing. 
But his shape he retained, and all of his ancient armor, 

A tall helmet he ^vore mounted by double high crests; 
Long was the fall of his robe which covered his tapering body, 

Draping a hint of the gods; graceful were bended his limbs. 
Here in vie\v of the city, wdiose eye is the fame of Athens, 

Antique shadows he casts, dim like the old in the ne-w. 
But, O Anacreon, let him now sing as he sang for thy measures, 

A new life he will have, echoing notes of thy Ivre. 



86 

Ah, discordant the sound I now hear in a dale of Ilymettus! 

'Tis the Byzantnie twang that from yon chapel doth come. 
That is surely the sound which killed old Pan in this mountain, 

And it would any God, daily to hear such a snarl. 

87 

Many a sound is hateful — the grating of hinges in dungeons, 
And the clanking of chains, also the human shrill screech; 

But the clanking:, the srratinor the screechino- is sweetest of music 
To the screed of the priest mid the Greek hills on a morn. 

88 

Who were to-day my visitors as I reposed on the hill of Colonus? 

Butterflies, birds and bees came with their message of jo\-. 
But here cometh a blind old man who is led by a maiden, 

What does he say? what she? Look in the.j^oet of old. 
Oedipus, thou art the man wdio alwa\-^ appears to the stranger, 

Here thou didst wander in life, here tlioii werl uCcn to the Gods. 



112 



89 

Still you may note the olive and grape, the plantain and cypress^ 
Through the Athenian vale, roaming the river along; 

Still at noon you may see old Cephissus rise out his stream-bed^ 
Secretly v^ater the trees that are enwreathing his banks; 

And the gracef ulest nymphs are still frisking amid yonder thicket^ 

Now^ from this height you may w^atch all of their frolicsome 

[sport. 

90 

Sophocles, this w^as thy hill on whose summit transpired the 

[w^onders 

Which thou didst see in old age, but with a vision beyond. 
Round the hill is woven a garland of silvery olives, 

Playing to-day in the breeze, pretty reminders of song. 
Peering amid the grey foliage gleams the bare top of Colonus, 

Like a poetical brow, aged, though fresh in its joy. 

Gone are thy temples and shrines, O hillock; gone are thy Gods 

[too. 

Still thou by Nature art crowned with the green wreath of 

[the bard. 



1 Kl- 



91 

What did you see, O stranger, to-day as 3/011 sat on the hill of the 

[]Muses, 

Seeking the joyous old haunts where the sweet Sisters once 

[dwelt? 

Goats, T saw nothing but goats that were browsing the thyme 

[of the hill-slopes, 

And there was nothing beside, which could be seen with the 

[eye. 
As I sat and watched their ungraceful and dirty caprices, 

Soon the danger I felt there of becoming a goat. 

92 

Long I sought on that liill for a trace of some musical shepherd, 
Tuning his pipe in the sun to the soft trill of his heart; 

Flocks I sought for calmly reposing in patches of sunshine. 
Maidens I looked for in vain, sporting with lambs on the rocks. 

All the hill-side was bare, not a bush, not a flower or thyme-stalk 
Whose mild fragrance was once sweetly distilled into verse. 

Pan is dead, the sh.epherd and shepherdess thence have vanished. 

Sheep are now left to themselves till they be shorn for their 

[fleece. 



-114 



93 



From the Nine Sisters this hill is named ; they dwelt on its summit, 

And from the height they attuned all the horizon around 
To their music; unto its cadences rose up 'the temples. 

Choruses fair tripped forth, swaying the body to song; 
The high forms of the Gods and Goddesses stepped out of marble, 

Speech was an ecstasy sweet, flowing to measures of time; 
All the deeds of the doers, all the words of the speakers 

Were one strain of the Muse singing in Athens of old. 



94 



Up, companion, climb to the top of the hill of the Muses, 
Thence you will note in the plain, city and temple and sea; 

And if you look long enough, you will witness the birth of Athena 
Rising up with her town cast in the mold of her brain. 



115— 



95 



From this top where we He, let iis view yon theater's ruin, 
Carefully build it anew, which all the Muses once built, 

When they had on this hill their temple of far-glancing glory. 
And inspired the voice which is still heard in those walls. 

Piece together their fragments, list to the notes that they echo. 
You will hear a vast rhythm setting to music the world. 



96 



Athens, many thy violet hills, and all of them sacred ! 

Each one, however small, raises its head to the skies 
High as Olympus; take, O friend, the next path of the ascent; 

It will lead to the top v^here is the home of a God. 



116- 



97 



O the shy Muses, I wonder if they to my love give requital ! 

Many adorers they have, fev^ are invited to stay; 

Some get a glance or a smile, and some get a w^ord from their 

[heart- depths, 

But the most are dismissed — suitors v^ho loiter outside. 
Scarce in a century w^ill the coy Muse fall in love w^ith a mortal, 

Breathing her soul into his, making one passionate life 
That must break into song and tune all the world to its keynote, 

When we see Nature herself joining her voice to the choir. 
Could I be sure I were loved as much as 1 love ye, O Sisters! 

Epigrams never would cease welling up into the day. 
(jive me the meed of my love back, be thou a Muse or maiden, 

Give the reciprocal kiss, lips are made two to be one. 



117— 



98 



In the bed of liissus Is lying Calirrhoe limpid, 

Heaving her watery breast still to the God of the stream ; 

Thither I wander to hear from the Nymph her melodies ancient, 
Fain would I catch her sweet note sung to the fablers of old. 

As I sat on a stone and looked at the gush of the fountain, 

Came with Junonian tread maiden of figure antique; 

White was the ripple of folds as they flowed down the lines of 

[her body, 

Broken to waves at each step, just as she bended the knee. 

She was bearing an amphora ancient of gracefulest model, 

Wherein to pour the fresh drink throbbed from the heart of 

[the earth; 

With the cup in her hand she was dipping it out of the fountain, 

Filling the jar at her side with a bright sparkle of pearls ; 

To me she handed a draught from the flood of Calirrhoe's vintage, 

While the wealth of her eyes, spendthrift, she poured on the 

[ground. 



118- 



Forward she leaned her lithe body that turned to the outHne of 

[Graces, 

High she swung her white arm bared to the shoulder of dress, 
Cupful she whirled after cupful into the mouth of the vessel, 

While her melodious breath uttered a song to the rhythm, 
As it softly was flowing from motion of hand and of body, 

So that attuned to one note seemed both her form and her lips. 
O the beautiful concord when song is a bodily movement, 

And the movement a song hymned from the heart in each act, 
See now the dead earthen amphora wet with Calirrhoe's finger! 

Forms spring out of its clay born at a touch of her hand; 
What was a dull, burnt side of a jar, quite lifeless and vacant, 

Now with action is filled, action of figures divine, . 

\ 

Pallas I see rise up at her city, in bearing majestic, 
To a mortal she speaks, son of Laertes I deem. 

Then is pictured a maid, Nausicaa, near to a fountain, 
To her Ulysses appears, wanderer mighty of old. 

And he prays her to lead him the way to the v^onderful city, 
Home of the beautiful forms, work too itself of the Gods. 



-119— 



Look, the maiden has raised to her head that amphora ancient, 

There it stands a high crown, wreathed with clear shajDcs of 

[old Time; 

She, with life in her movement, is giving her life to its figures, 

She is one of them there, though she be here too to-day. 
See the old and the new now vanishing into each other, 

Interplaying their forms dowm from Olympus to earth, 
And from the earth to Olympus again, in the sport of their beauty, 

Her they are giving their grace, them she is giving her breath. 
Sketched on the air she is moving both into and out of that picture, 

Dropped from the outlines of art into the movement of life. 
Who can distinguish which is the modern, which is the ancient? 

In the draught of thy fount softly reflecting a world, 
These are the forms that rise up in a chorus, Calirrhoe limpid, 

Thy clear waters still limn all the old shapes of the bard. 



120- 



99 



This Athenian landscape is ever a glorious poem, 

Which from each spot you can read all the long day in your 

[walk. 

Radiant verses are gleaming like falchions aloft on the summits, 

Mighty heroical lines lighten througli opaline skies, 

Heaving hexameters roll from the rise and the fall of the sea 

[swell. 

Tender love epigrams lisp cadences low in between. 
Plain and mountain and sea are a garland of splendor majestic, 

Circling the head of old Time laid in fair Attica's lap; 
Foliage, herd, and ship make a line of a musical measure 

Moving with harmonies sweet into one cast of the eye. 
O the transfusion of sound! the transfiguration of vision! 

Every object of sense flashes to letters of light; 

Brightest of scripture is writ on the earth with a pencil of 

[sunbeams. 

And the white folds of the clouds drop down unrolHng a scroll ; 

Many a line of old Homer is cut on the burnished horizon. 

Words of the Muse built of stars nightly you read in the sky, 



—1 2 1 — 

Strains of high singers Flow still from the liquid Ionian heavens, 
Out of each foinitaln are heai'd songs set with fancies of old, 

Weeds and thorns and branihles are hungwith emeralds precious, 
Pebbles begin underfoot suddenly turning to pearls; 

Wisdom, the grave old sage, is diamonded over and o\'er 

As he walks through the grove, bearing the thought of the 

[world. 

Ancient Pentillcus yonder is speaking a word to the sculptor, 

Rising to statue from stone, filling the dome of the skv; 
Happy Hymettus transfuses to song all the dew of his hones , 

As he sweeps to the plain from the clear home of the Gods. 
Yet this Nature is but the outermost garb of the poem, 

Which the body doth grace hinting the glories within, 
Nobly suggesting the soul in the refluent folds of green drapery. 

As it flowing throngh vales rolls to the tops of the hills. 

Only look up; you will see, wherever you are, the fair temple 

Which in the center is placed, raying out streams from its 

[height: 

Fountain perennial, welling above an Athenian hillock. 

Thence overflowing Greek hills into the stream of the world; 

Waves it is sending of translucerit smiles in eternal processions, 



—122- 

Thousands of years it has tilled all of this plain with its joy 

Up to the mountainous rim that lies on the earth like a garland, 

And embosoms the fane in a long, happy caress. 

Cincture of pillars by distance becomes a gay zone of Greek 

[maidens, 

Festively dressed in white folds, reaching each other the hand. 

See the fair chorus of columns now dancing around on the 

[summit, 

The full joy of the feast flows to the ends of the plain, 

Speaking afar to the wayfarer lonely, evangels of beauty 

Moving to measures of song under melodious skies. 

Thither, O wanderer, haste from the vale, from the mountain 

[most distant, 

Haste on the wings of the ship over the islanded seas, 
Aught is reaching for thee far out of the heart of the temple, 

Fair as the youth of the world, wise as the old age of Time, 
Drawing thee up the Acropolis bound in fleet fetters of sunbeams. 

Till thou art set on its top from the wide world's other side; 
Pass now into the temple, thou wilt behold the high Goddess, 

Where she sits on her throne, seen by her worshiper true; 
She will show thee her beauty, she will tell thee her wisdom, 

She is the landscape's heart, heart of the poem is she. 



12:V 



lOO 



Parthenon, mid thy deep joy thou showest a still deeper sorrow, 

Fate has smitten thee too, as it smote heroes of old. 

Yes, I catch thv sweet smile which gladdens the sea and the 

[valley. 

But I behold, too, the wound which has been struck in thy side. 
Thou like Oedipus, Hercules, thou the Greek temple, art tragic, 

Ruin heroic thou art, beautiful just in thy fall. 
O the eternal delig^ht that sino-s out thy frag-ments of marble! 

O the eternal pain from the pierced heart of thy stones! 

lOI 

Here, at thy shrine, O Pan, near the stream of little Ilissus, 

Gratefully to thee I give all of the wanderer's arms: 
Namely, this faithful staff which stoutly supported my footsteps 

Where are the mountain haunts trod by the shepherd alone; 
And these shoes too I offer, now torn by the rocks of the hillside 

As I sought thy retreat mid the deep forest and glen. 
By their aid and by thine, O Pan, I have ended my journey. 

Take now the signs of mv art, grant me, I pra\' thee, repose. 



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